Notre-Dame de Paris

c. 1881

Notre-Dame de Paris, c. 1881. Luc-Olivier Merson (French, 1846–1920). Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, black and white gouache, and graphite; sheet: 32.6 x 21.7 cm (12 13/16 x 8 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2008.359 Victor Hugo's celebrated 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, a disfigured orphan raised by the archdeacon of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Hugo's novel became an important influence on many artists and helped to define a poetic view of the medieval period and of Gothic architecture that lasted well into the second half of the century. This drawing by Luc-Olivier Merson was reproduced as a wood engraving in an illustrated tribute to Hugo published in 1881. After creating this drawing, Luc-Olivier Merson went on to illustrate an important 1889 edition of Notre-Dame de Paris, one of the major projects of his career.